“Adolescence” makes me fear having children
Shame is one of the most powerful human emotions. Shame can manifest in many ways and often coexists with a sense of rejection. According to the American Psychological Association, experiencing rejection can often cause someone to spiral into violence. “If someone’s primary concern is to reassert a sense of control, he or she may become aggressive as a way to force others to pay attention,” according to the APA website. “Adolescence,” a new limited series on Netflix, warns of the dangers of shame, hatred and aggression gone unchecked, particularly in a world that seems to foster aggression in young men more and more each day.
The show follows a 13-year-old boy, Jamie, who is arrested for the murder of his classmate, Katie. Owen Cooper portrays Jamie, and I thought his expressions of rage and manipulation were spot on. Considering that Cooper is only 15-years-old himself and this is his first time acting; his performance was quite impressive.
To say the least, the show is extremely dark. I would not recommend it if you are looking for a comforting watch that will make you feel better about our world, but I would recommend it if you are looking for something that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Each episode is filmed in only one shot, which adds an element of reality, and I often found myself wondering how they possibly filmed each episode with little to no mistakes.
Although the cast had great performances, and I thought the message of the show was profound, I still felt that it was lacking something. For example, there is no coverage of Jamie’s trial and we never see his friends after the second episode. These choices may have been intentional, but I personally did not enjoy them.
The show does a great job of making you feel empathy towards all of the characters [somehow, even Jamie at times], and I found it to be a wake up call. In the last episode, Jamie’s parents question whether they should have done more to monitor his activity online. This made me realize that the seemingly innocuous act of letting your child entertain themselves with unlimited access to social media is a slippery slope. In our modern times, where hatred for women becomes increasingly normalized, it is easy for young men to fall into the Andrew Tate, conservative trap. For example, things such as online chat rooms have seemed to foster this mindset in young men, but we must stop this from happening before it results in such tragedies.
